09/22/2020
Check out all of these amazing contributions! #NationalHispanicHeritageMonth
In recognition of #NationalHispanicHeritageMonth, which runs to October 15, we are highlighting some the many contributions to Evergreen made by Hispanic artists.
We start with #MiguelCovarrubias (1904-57), a versatile Mexican artist, who produced several works for the Garretts of Evergreen in a variety of media. From the book "Evergreen: The Garrett Family, Collectors and Connoisseurs":
"In or soon after 1924, Frank Crowninshield [the editor of Vanity Fair] introduced the Garretts to the Mexican artist Miguel Covarrubias, who, at nineteen years of age, had only recently arrived in New York City. Unable to speak English well but blessed with charisma and engaging manners, Covarrubias soon made connections with people who appreciated his unique talent for caricature drawings, including Crowninshield himself, who hired the artist to create amusing drawings of American celebrities for Vanity Fair [. . . .]
Besides his extraordinary talent for caricature, Covarrubias was a painter, a connoisseur of music, and a habitué of theater and dance performances, just as the Harlem Renaissance was reaching its height. Totally taken with the talent he encountered, the artist made numerous drawings of the many artists, performers, and patrons he came to know [. . . . ] The Harlem drawings led to commissions for stage sets and costume designs, including for the famous "Revue Nègre," which regularly featured Josephine Baker and proved a thundering success in Paris, both for the performers and for Covarrubias himself.
In 1928, Covarrubias created a decorative three-panel screen for Evergreen's first floor. Painted in the brilliant, saturated colors for which he was famous, the screen appears to the viewer an impenetrable rainforest brimming with fantastic trees and exotic flowers. Out of this thick tropical foliage emerges a small leopard looking rather surprised, a detail that establishes an amusing confrontation between the wild jungle and the refined Evergreen. The Garretts also acquired an irresistible caricature of the then-president of the United Sates, Calvin Coolidge, which is simultaneously funny and endearing. Covarrubias also designed a series of costumes for Alice [Warder Garrett].
In 1933, Evergreen's reading room was refurbished with fine teak paneling that included lunettes over the room's four doors. Alice wanted each of them painted with scenes from John's most important diplomatic postings: Berlin, Paris, The Hague, and, not least, Rome, where he enjoyed his last and most prominent post as ambassador. It's scene holds pride of place about the enterance to the Main Library. Four smaller, vertical panels framing two southern alcoves represent other diplomatic posts in Venezuela, Argentina, Luxembourg, and Washington. It was during the Garretts' discussion of this decorative plan that Crowninshield suggested that Covarrubias would be a good candidate for that project [. . . .]
By the time of John [Work Garrett's] death in 1942, Covarrubias had returned to Mexico and was absorbed in ethnological studies. At his own early death in 1957, the artist was counted as one of his country's most prominent ethnological and archeological scholars. . . . The Garretts' acquisitions and commissioning of his art added a refreshing and daringly non-European facet that greatly enriches the collection at Evergreen to this day.
Painted Screen with Exotic Flora and Fauna, by Miguel Covarrubias (Mexican, 1904-57), 1928, oil on cavas. Evergreen House Foundation; Bequest of Alice Warder garrett, EH1952.1.910. © Maria Elena Rico Covarrubias.
Caricature of Calvin Coolidge, by Miguel Covarrubias (Mexican, 1904-57), 1931, pencil on paper, Evergreen House Foundation; Bequest of Alice Warder Garrett, EH1952.1.1055
Costume for Alice Warder Garrett, by Miguel Covarrubias (Mexican 1904-57), c. 1920s, cotton and velvet, Evergreen House Foundation; Bequest of Alice Warder Garrett, EH2014.2.2
Reading Room lunette panel, "Rome," by Miguel Covarrubias (Mexican, 1904-57), 1933, oil on teak. Evergreen House Foundation; Bequest of Alice Warder Garrett, EH1952.1.951d. © Maria Elena Rico Covarrubias.
